World Wrestling Entertainment Without Hulk Hogan

[TheHitMark-SirJoseOle]

Actually, this entire topic is a hypothetical. "Would the WWE have gone mainstream without HH?" To answer an obvious fictional hypothetical requires one to jump into the fictional time machine and try to see if history's course can be changed.

Honestly and no disrespect intended...I seem to be the only one doing that here. The rest of you keep answering and insulting me for daring to consider a world without HH but that's EXACTLY WHAT THE QUESTION IS ASKING FOR.

For the record, I agree that HH was a great wrestler in the 80s who indeed was instrumental in the rise of the WWE.

But again, the topic is to consider the WWE WITHOUT him, not to point out how good he was.

Boss, I think I answered this to the best of my abilities with what I do know, like I mentioned there were those other stars in wrestling that competed in the AWA, Crockett Promotions and WWF. Let's just put it this way, I still would have watched pro wrestling and gotten into it even without Hulk Hogan, despite my being fan. There were enough other guys that got me into watching the product. Hell, when most kids I knew were sad that Hogan left WWF in the summer-fall time of 1993, I will admit I was somewhat ticked as an 11 year old but I moved on and by the time he went to WCW, I still stayed committed to the WWF more or less although as I got older I enjoyed both for different reasons. So in my opinion I think there could have still been a wrestling scene, I just don't know how big things would have been without Hogan, it really isn't the easiest question to answer.

and yet, for me and most of my friends, it's 100% truth. We grew up watching NWA, not WWF. We weren't Hulkamaniacs. We didn't take our vitamins nor did we pray. Most of us marked out for the Horsemen and the various awesome heels of the NWA, later WCW.

Yet we still became ticket-paying, TV-watching fans anyway.

And I can't blame ya for that boss, if I wasn't born in the Northeast, I would probably have shared your opinion 100%. To be honest, as a fan I long for the days of WTBS still airing professional wrestling on a Saturday night. In the later 80s, I would spend weekends at my grandfather's house watching the then Jim Crockett Promotions at the time, the short story being that the town my gramps lived in had a different cable system and they had WTBS for the longest time. I had to wait until the early 1990s to get my WCW fix. And I was very grateful as a fan when I finally got it. WWF could have bragged all they wanted about Prime Time Wrestling, but there was nothing better for a wrestling time slot at that period than Saturday Nights at 6:05PM!

The rest of your post, you go on to describe Hulk's talents and skills, and you do a noteworthy job of that.

But I don't argue that HH wasn't talented: He clearly was. I just think there were a few others (Flair, HBK, Bret Hart, and likely others in the WWF that I was unable to watch due to territorial infringement at the time) that likely would've been able to elevate the WWE to the mainstream.

And brother I feel you so much on that dude, like you wouldn't believe, Hart, Michaels and Flair are such favorites of mine! I have so many fond memories of watching these men perform in person. My sole reason for going to SummerSlam 2002 was to see Shawn Michaels come out of retirement against Triple H. I think they were great talents too and I'd like to hope in a world without Hogan they could have elevated pro wrestling. But I am not sure how many people share that same mindset like you and I. Because you and I are only two examples of the wrestling audience and neither of us speak for the masses. But to be honest, I definitely support you in the way of believing in what the other stars could have done for the product. Absolutely.

Which is the question here. The question is NOT "Was Hulk Hogan talented?". He obviously was. I just think he was gifted with good booking, great heels, and awesome timing. His first failed WWE run (yeah, I looked it up on Wiki, since I didn't get to watch it ) didn't appear to be much of a success, which belies that his later run was all about him. It wasn't.

Now, I'm not necessarily trying to play Devil's Advocate here with Hogan, but his first run in the then WWWF was not the worst, he had several World Title matches with Bob Backlund and the seeds of his appeal had started. In fact people started to really take notice of what many considered an individual they never saw the likes of. I was barely being born around this time so I am not as intimate with this era of the then WWWF soon to be WWF. I'm not sure how much of the behind the scenes story I really believe but if it's all true this run actually got Sylvester Stallone's attention, enough of it actually to get him to offer Hogan a movie part in Rocky III. Because of this movie part, Hogan and Vince's father who was still running the promotion fired him without hesitation, since he had felt that wrestlers belong in the ring and not on movie sets. Even though that would have been great cross promotion for the WWF. You definitely can't compare it to his return after the creation of the Hulkamania persona, but by no means was it a failure, at least I don't consider it one.

Weak sauce.

I've never hit a tee shot at The Masters but when Tiger bombs one into the woods, I'll still call it a poorly-hit ball. And be correct.

I've never attempted a free throw in the NBA, but when Shaq inevitably misses, I can still call his form "fucking awful". And be correct.

I've never been President but know that Obama's healthcare plan sucks ass. And I'm right.

The only reason I had issue with this is because I just don't believe ANYONE can walk into the wrestling business and find luck and have it last for as long as it does. I mean I have definitely been critical about what I've seen Hogan and other wrestlers do before, but I still understand that I am not doing what these guys are doing for a living so I limit my criticism. Sure I will definitely voice my opinion on if a match sucks or not, but I still realize that it's easier said than done to just walk in there and do what these guys do on a regular basis.

It's not that I'm "not a fan" (I'm not). It's that "I wasn't exposed to Hulkamania at all yet me and millions of others still became wrestling fans of other promotions."

Giving proper credit to Hogan is again NOT the topic here. The topic is a discussion of an alternate universe where HH doesn't exist.

In my view I think the proper credit to Hogan and what wrestling would be like without him are an essential tie in to one another. Because in order to take into account what wrestling would be like without him, we have to definitely understand what he has done for the business and think of how different things would be without those contributions. However, I even admit that I did kind of veer off some of the focus of the topic. I am more than willing to acknowledge that. The one thing that made me want to raise a contesting opinion towards you in regards to a wrestler's ability to work was this line you wrote to another poster:

Perhaps not Andre but you or I could've waved the American flag and been great Faces vs the evil terrorist Iron Sheik or commie Nikolai Volkoff. Pitting an American Face vs Arabs or Commies wasn't exactly a difficult thing to pull off.

While, it's definitely true that the ethnic villains at that time were SO HATED that you could put anyone in the good guy role is almost easy to believe on the surface. But if you take a look you'll see that guys like Corporal Kirchner who were put in there to oppose the villains like Nikolai Volkoff and that storyline just didn't last. There is speculation about why Kirchner was fired but nonetheless it just wasn't meant to be as a long term storyline. So I just feel your statement was an oversimplification of what it takes to get in there and be over as a face. I feel this does tie into the topic of what WWF/E would have been like without Hulk Hogan, because as you can see right here, Kircher and Volkoff wasn't a feud that carried anywhere past WrestleMania 2, had there been no Hulk Hogan who knows how Vince would have worked around not having another American superhero character? Again, I still would have supported the product no matter what. But I still can't speak for other fans. I hate making this stupid comparison but I might as well, you have to think about great recipes when one is cooking, if you don't put the right amount of a certain ingredient in, you might have a good finished product but not necessarily a great one.

None of your post came across as personal criticism. But none of it seemed to be about the topic either. Most of it seemed to be a defense of Hulk Hogan, which isn't the topic.

The topic (again) is "Could WWE have gone mainstream without Hogan?".

I believe it could have. I've seen absolutely nothing in any rebuttal yet to make me think otherwise.

I'm doing my best to answer this, hopefully this post will be closer to an answer than my last one was.

To everyone responding: I get it. Hulk Hogan was a big star who helped the rise of the WWE. I don't argue that.

But that's not the topic. The topic is to consider a Wrestling World where Hulk Hogan doesn't exist (or at least, didn't get the push he rec'd in 1983) and the effects of that on the WWE.

I'd be happy to discuss that but any replies of how much I suck for daring to think differently from the rest of the herd and how lame I am for not worshiping the train wreck that is today's HH will be politely ignored. Thanks.

Now to close this out, I think I'll discuss what the WWF was like in late 1983, probably took forever to get there but heck we're just here to shoot from the hip, we don't need to worry about formalities. So here goes, you had a cadre of great superstars at least they were in my view. You had Tito Santana, Don Muraco, Adrian Adonis, Dick Murdoch, Bob Backlund, The Samoans, Rocky Johnson and Tony Atlas, The Junkyard Dog, Iron Sheik, and let's not forget Sgt. Slaughter. Those names were all awesome and while Vince was preparing to really take this thing national, guys like Greg Valentine came back to wrestle full time for Vince. Now that there is just great talent, talent that I enjoyed watching in addition to The Hulkster. I believe greatly in these stars abilities to make people want to watch wrestling, even without The Hulkster. But like I made that recipe analogy earlier who knows how effective those guys alone would have really been? I mean there still would have been an NWA there's no question about it and I think Verne Gagne would have still gotten what time he had left with the AWA. But I have a hard time thinking that things would have been what they were without Hogan. That mainstream exposure and the current product we have right now might not have been what it is without him.

In closing though you do not suck, if any poster on here tells you otherwise than he or she is an ignorant and close minded asshole. You just happen to be a fan that's impassioned for the product for other reasons, and while I don't agree with some of the simplifications and criticisms you made, I also happen to respect your appreciation for wrestling history. In my mind, anyone who's a JCP/NWA fan has a true appreciation for what wrestling is. It was a great alternative to people that didn't want to watch Hulk Hogan and WWF matches all the time. And it has its place in wrestling history and deserves to be appreciated. So yeah the terms like lame, and you suck will not come from me and I don't think anyone else saying so is being in any way shape or form fair to you.

I appreciate your posts and I am glad to see that you made a rebuttal because it's helped me want to think a little more about what I said the first time!

Keep up what I feel was a good post even if I didn't agree with it all, we need more fans like you to post to make good counter points.

Thanks boss.

 

[THTRobtaylor]

We can argue semantics all day. WWE would have been taken into households as the '80s rolled on. But it wasn't a global market without Hogan. You can act like Hogan was just right place, right time and ran with it, but he needed to keep it up, and he did.

It's not a case of semantics... There already was a global market in that WWE WAS shown in the UK as early as 1983 as part of the ITV World Of Sport wrestling show... The WWF ran shows and had titles defended in Japan.... All Hogan had was the Rocky movie behind him, the one Vince Sr. let him walk to do... They could have used Arnie and Andre as he was in Conan... it could have been Kurt Russell and Ox Baker, who was in Escape From New York or Harrison Ford and Pat "Bomber Roach" from Indiana Jones... any would have had the global appeal it wasn't Hogan who made the difference, it was the mainstream exposure a major movie role in a film with Stallone that meant people around the world recognised Hogan... they recognised Mr. T and Cyndi Lauper too... any wrestler who had been in a major picture could have been in that feud and made it work... and many wrestlers had been in movies or TV...